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The Tradition of the 364-Day Calendar Versus the Calendar Polemic In DOI 10.31743/vv.4831 Received: Feb 10, 2019 / Accepted: Mar 29, 2019 / Published: Dec 21, 2020 VERBUM VITAE • 38/1 (2020) 79–105 ISSN 1644-856 / e-ISSN 2451-280X /https://czasopisma.kul.pl/vv/article/view/4831 DOI 10.31743/vv.4831 Received: Feb 10, 2019 / Accepted: Mar 29, 2019 / Published: Dec 21, 2020 The Tradition of the 364-Day Calendar versus the Calendar Polemic in Second Temple Judaism1 MICHAŁ KLUKOWSKI The John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin [email protected], https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1130-7406ORCID: 0000-0003-1130-7406 Abstract: The article presents the major hypotheses concerning the emergence of the 364-day calen- dar within Judaism and the related calendrical controversy, which presumably caused the separation of a certain group of Jews, known to us as the Qumran Community, from the temple cult in Jerusalem. It is not known whether the 364-day calendar tradition is older than that of the Astronomical Book, or whether the adoption of this tradition was accompanied by conflicts. The Qumran texts do not provide unequivocal evidence for any calendrical polemics. The only witness to these polemics is The Book of Jubilees, copies of which were found in the Qumran library. However, the Qumran Community itself did not share the radical line of The Book of Jubilees, which condemns reliance on the moon in time-keeping. The 364-day calendar is presumed to have been a distinctive feature of the Qumran Community, which however did not arouse any controversies within Second Temple Judaism. Keywords: calendar; 364-day; Qumran; polemic; controversy Less than a year after the publication of the first manuscripts, discovered by two Bedouins in one of the caves on the northwest shore of the Dead Sea (1947),2 Shem- aryahu Talmon put forward a hypothesis that the cause of the schism that gave rise to the Qumran community was a dispute over the observance of a correct calendar.3 Several years later this view was approved by Józef Tadeusz Milik,4 and then by sev- eral other scholars,5 although it was Talmon who regarded the calendrical contro- versy as fundamental in understanding the origin of the Qumran community and 1 The article is part of the project funded by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education, Poland, “Re- gional Initiative of Excellence” in 2019–2022, project number: 028/RID/2018/19, the amount of funding: 11,742,500 PLN. 2 Burrows – Trever – Brownlee, The Dead Sea Scrolls of St. Mark’s Monastery, I–II. 3 Talmon, “Yom Hakkippurim,” 549–563. 4 Milik, Ten Years of Discovery, 64–70. 5 VanderKam, “The Origin, Character and Early History,” 390–411; idem, “2 Maccabees 6–7a,” 52–74; Chyutin, “The Controversy of the Calendars,” 209–214; Wacholder, “Calendar Wars,” 208–222; Vander- Kam, Calendars in the Dead Sea Scrolls, 113–116; Vermes, The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English, 77–79; Fraade, “Theory, Practice, and Polemic,” 147–181. 79 Michał KluKowsKi sustained his thesis till the end of his life.6 However, the publication of the subse- quent texts from the remaining caves and the resulting knowledge of the calendrical system included in the Qumran texts changed our perception of their function and significance within the community, and consequently, the presumed importance of the system for its formation. The aim of this paper is to answer the following ques- tions: When and in what circumstances could the 364-day year have been adopted into Judaism? Did the process take place peacefully or rather in an atmosphere of dispute? What role did the Qumran community play in the adoption of the 364-day year? Did the community defend it as an already established tradition or did they ini- tiate it? Finally, do the currently available source texts support the thesis of a calen- drical polemic as the main reason for the origin of the Qumran community? 1. Introduction to the Concept of the 364-Day Year After the publication of all the available manuscripts from Qumran it became evident that the 364-day year was the basis for almost all the calendrical texts.7 The 364-day year is made up of twelve months of 30 days each; however, at the end of each quarter, an additional day is inserted to give a total of 364 days. The 364-day year probably originated from the Babylonian ideal 360-day year, although scholars have discussed the probable presence of the 364-day year in the Babylonian texts.8 The essential fea- ture of this year, as it appears in the writings of the Qumran community, is the con- stancy of its days, irrespective of astronomical phenomena and the actual length of the lunar and solar years. Therefore, the Sabbath and particular appointed festival times fall on the same day of the month each year, and the 364-day year begins on a Wednesday since on the fourth day God created the celestial bodies (Gen 1:14-19), which allow us to create a system of reckoning time. As the 364-day year does not correspond to the actual length of the solar year (365.25 days), it cannot be described as a solar year,9 especially that, except for The Book of Jubilees, the users of the 364-day calendar did not negate the lunar phe- 6 Talmon, “The Calendar Reckoning,” 162–199; idem, “Anti-Lunar-Calendar Polemic,” 29–40; idem, “Cal- endar Controversy in Ancient Judaism,” 379–395; idem, “Calendars and Mishmarot,” 112–117; Talmon – Ben-Dov – Glessmer, Qumran Cave 4, XVI, 3, 6. 7 Abegg, “The Calendar at Qumran,” 154–171. It is not certain whether the scroll 4Q318 refers to the 360-day year; nevertheless, such a year might have been the basis for the 364-day year. The problem of 4Q318 has been described in detail: Greenfield – Sokoloff, “An Astrological Text from Qumran,” 507–525; 79 Albani, “Der Zodiakos in 4Q318,” 3–42; Wise, “Thunder in Gemini,” 13–50. 8 Horowitz, “The 360 and 364 Day Year,” 35–44; idem, “The 364 Day Year,” 49–51; Koch, “AO 6478, MUL. APIN,” 97–99; idem, “Kannte man in Mesopotamien,” 109–112; idem, “Ein für allemal,” 112–114. 9 Phillip R. Callaway (“The 364-Day Calendar Traditions at Qumran,” 19–28) and Uwe Glessmer (“Cal- endars in the Qumran Scrolls,” 231) prefer the term “traditions of the 364-day calendar,” while Jona- 80 VERBuM ViTaE 38/1 (2020) 79–105 ThE TRadiTion of ThE 364-day calEndaR VERsus ThE calEndaR PolEMic nomena, but, on the contrary, took them into account.10 Moreover, it is also not correct to opt for – as Milik did11 – a synchronous calendar since the concept of the 364-day year is based on a theoretical calculation and is not an attempt to recon- cile the sun’s movements and the lunar phases. In this context, the intriguing thing is that no textual evidence has yet been found, which would allow us to explain how the community solved the factual disparity between the 364-day schematic year and the solar year, especially over a period of several years or a few dozen decades.12 The schematic 364-day year emerged in Judaism for the first time in the Astro- nomical Book of Henoch (1 Hen 72–82, 3rd century BC13), then in The Book of Jubi- lees (mid-2nd century BC14), and finally, in texts discovered at Qumran (2nd century BC–1st century AD). Obviously, this calendrical tradition must have existed within Judaism for some time before it was written down, but having no textual evidence we can only guess what the circumstances and time of its adoption were. Nevertheless, in order to define the terminus a quo of a potential calendar polemic in the context of the 364-day year tradition, we should firstly indicate a probable period during which this calendar may have come to be considered normative by at least one Jewish group. 2. The 364-day Year – Between Babylon and Jerusalem One of the first hypotheses for the origin of the 364-day calendar was put forward by Annie Jaubert. She observed that the 364-day calendar she had reconstructed strikingly harmonised with the late priestly tradition of the Hebrew Bible. For if the 364-day calendar were to be applied to it, by no means would the Sabbath day be violated (whether due to travelling or performing any other forbidden activity), and moreover, festival days would consistently be held on Sundays, Wednesdays or Fridays.15 Considering that the oldest book in which the 364-day calendar can thus be discerned is the Book of Ezekiel, it can be concluded that its tradition dates back than Ben-Dov calls it “a schematic calendar” (“The 364-Day Year in the Dead Sea Scrolls,” 80), in turn, Ron H. Feldman uses the term “Sabbath” (“The 364-Day ‘Qumran’ Calendar,” 350). 10 Ben-Dov – Horowitz, “The Babylonian Lunar Three,” 104–120; Ben-Dov, “Lunar Calendars at Qumran?,” 173–189; Baumgarten, “4Q503 (Daily Prayers),” 399–407. 11 Milik, The Books of Enoch, 274–276. 12 The text of 4QOtot (4Q319) may show certain attempts of such intercalations, see Glessmer, “The Otot- Texts (4Q319),” 125–164. For other hypothetical intercalary systems of the 364-day calendar and their evaluation see Beckwith, “The Modern Attempt,” 457–466; idem, Calendar and Chronology, 125–140. Ben- Dov (Head of All Years, 18–20) doubts whether such a system was ever used since there is no evidence of its existence, and moreover, it would be an admission that this divine and biblically rooted calendar is imperfect. 13 Nickelsburg – VanderKam, 1 Enoch 2, 339–341; Drawnel, The Aramaic Astronomical Book, 28, 46–53.
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